


even the stars they burn (some even fall to the earth)

by aceofdiamonds



Series: even if the skies get dark // harry and george [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 11:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: He cards a hand through George’s hair, brushing it away from the space where his ear used to be.“What d’you think?” George whispers. “Still fancy me?”Harry grimaces, swallowing over the embarrassing lump in his throat. “Now’s not the time, is it?” and his thumb passes over George’s lip, soft, before he stands up abruptly.harry and george throughout deathly hallows





	even the stars they burn (some even fall to the earth)

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve never actually written anything deathly hallows based before so this was fun. also, it was harder to shoehorn george into dh scenes so sorry if some of it feels a bit forced. 
> 
> in a stunning show of my limited music taste, the title is from i won't give up by jason mraz which has also been the source for another part of this series.

  
  


Seventh year starts and -- wait, that’s not how this one goes.

At almost seventeen he’s too old for that. 

  
  


.

  
  


The summer begins and Harry feels a part of the wizard world outside of Hogwarts for the first time in his life. He still doesn’t have much of a say in what’s going on but at least he’s  _ involved _ , at least he’s updated with plans and changes, and what’s happening to the Dursleys when the charm holding them together under one roof vanishes. 

  
  


.

  
  


Harry watches as half a dozen people morph into him, black messy hair and thin red scars appearing around the room. They strip off, no concern for his modesty, as they rummage around bags, muttering comments about his eyesight, his muscles, his height. 

“This is not good for my self esteem,” he tells the nearest Harry, the one he knows to be Ron. 

Ron claps him on the back. “You’re the Chosen One, mate,” which doesn’t even make sense. 

“We’re identical,” Fred and George say, pulling on matching t-shirts. They catch Harry’s eye and George (he’s always been able to tell them apart) shifts, running a hand through his hair. Fred catches on and laughs, dropping an arm around Harry and George’s shoulders. “When you started dating, Harry, do you know what I told George? That it’ll never be normal -- and wasn’t I right?”

“Must be nice to be attractive for once in your life,” Harry says when Fred has moved on. He leans back against the wall, watches as George fiddles with his glasses. 

“You better hope this doesn’t stick -- unless you’re into that,” and then George winks, grabs a stuffed owl and goes to walk towards Lupin but Harry reaches out, catches his hand. 

He swallows -- “Thanks for risking your life for me.” 

And GeorgeHarry grins. “It’d be weird if I kissed you right now but remember what I said, Harry. I want to do whatever I can.”

  
  


.

  
  


They’re first back which is wrong. He paces the garden with Ginny, her voice soothing as she catches him up on the summer so far and it’s as he opens his mouth to ask how she is that there’s a pop and Lupin falls into the garden, an unconscious bloody George in his arms. 

Harry’s feet carry him into the living room where Lupin lays George on the couch, too many people and too much blood in the way to see the damage. He stands in the corner as Mrs Weasley waves her wand with steady hands, murmuring charms under her breath to first clear the blood, then to clean the wound. There’s an aborted gasp from Ginny and Harry steps forward, horror in his stomach at what he might see. 

There’s a perfect hole where George’s ear was. A dark, absurd, hole.

Harry’s not usually the one on the other side of injury and he hates it. 

He drops to his knees beside the couch, eyes not leaving the way George’s chest rises and falls, focuses on the fact that’s alive, that he’s here, even if not every bit of him is. 

Harry is reaching out to touch George’s cheek, to rub away a bit of blood from a scrape on his forehead, when there’s a clatter and Fred is suddenly beside him, hands fluttering across George’s face, panic settling into unease as he watches his mirror be so still. 

“How is he?” and Harry wonders, as he tends to do, if anyone ever resents him for him putting them in danger this way. If they ever regret the day Ron sat in his carriage - because yes, he’s saved half their lives but he wouldn’t need to if they weren’t so close to him in the first place.

“Well, he’s lost an ear,” Harry says unnecessarily. 

“‘M saintlike, Fred,” is the other reply, making Harry jump because he took his eyes off him for one second. 

“What?”

George lifts a hand, gestures vaguely at his wound, his hand dropping to catch Harry’s - “Get it? Holey? Saintlike?”

Fred rocks back on his heels. “Honestly, Harry. Keep him. I can’t have him saying jokes like that.” 

And Harry laughs, bubbling out of him in shock. The others aren’t back yet, he knows this, but some of them are, and that’s the perspective he’s leaning into. He cards a hand through George’s hair, brushing it away from the space where his ear used to be. 

“What d’you think?” George whispers. “Still fancy me?”

Harry grimaces, swallowing over the embarrassing lump in his throat. “Now’s not the time, is it?” and his thumb passes over George’s lip, soft, before he stands up abruptly.

More people come flooding in, rushing through security checks as they try and find their leak, as they check on everyone else. Harry steps back as the Weasleys gather around George, shaking his head when George catches his eye, saying he can stay, but he can’t breathe. 

“Mad-Eye’s dead,” Bill says and the world shudders.

  
  


.

  
  


It shakes through him, this feeling that he lead everyone to harm, to permanent disfigurement, to death.

“You can’t leave now,” Ron says, the implication hanging in the air that it will be for nothing. “This is so much bigger than you, mate. But we need you.”

  
  


.

  
  


After Harry has gleefully poked himself in the eye with his glasses and opened the rest of his presents, the watch from the Weasley’s stunning him into silence, he laughs out loud at the way George is not so subtly tilting his head, their code to leave the room immediately. 

They disappear up the stairs with Harry making half-hearted excuses that no one believes. Their Chosen One is a man now — let him be happy. 

“Happy birthday, Harry,” George murmurs when he’s locked the door to his old room, voice low in Harry’s ear, and then gives Harry a thoroughly good birthday present, even if he can’t take it with him. “Something to remember me by, eh?” 

To which Harry says, too flippantly, “No one’s dying, okay?” and then he drags George in and goes for round two because he knows these last two days are the last chance at any happiness and so he’s grabbing on with both hands. 

  
  


.

  
  


“Cousins can dance together, can’t they?”

“Not the way you’re trying it,” Harry laughs, attempting to twirl George under his arm, forgetting he’s five inches shorter in Barny’s body. They stumble into the happy couple, calling their apologies over their shoulders as they move across the room. Harry knows they shouldn’t be drawing attention to themselves but at that moment George picks Harry up and spins them around and Harry cries with laughter.

Give them their last day.

  
  


.

  
  


Their goodbye is a panicked gaze met across the dancefloor as Hermione takes Harry’s hand and pulls the three of them in a circle.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


The months flicker by in blurs of tents and forests and hastily whispered protective charms. They break into the Ministry, find a Horcrux, drive each other mad, and that’s just the first fortnight.

.

  
  


Ron disappears in a blaze just before Christmas and it feels unbalanced without him, the third point to their triangle. 

Harry switches between giving Hermione space to cry and hovering beside her, never knowing the best thing to say, because he misses Ron like a hole in his chest and he doesn’t know what to do. 

.

He nearly dies -- which, at this point, isn’t even noteworthy. 

.

  
  


He wakes to a broken wand and a tearful Hermione and he reads a book that further destroys his image of Dumbledore and everything he stood for. 

.

A bright light: Ron pulls him from a lake, sword in hand, and a thousand apologies. 

.

(“How was your family?” Harry asks, eyes on the ground. “How was --”

“George?” Ron scoffs. “Do you think I went home? They would have killed me for leaving you. Can you imagine George? I stayed with Bill and Fleur -- according to them everyone is fine,” and Harry’s stomach untwists.)

.

  
  


They nearly get caught at Xenophilius’ house and they settle into an uneasy period of just  _ waiting _ , waiting for an idea, for something to happen. 

And then Ron taps taps taps the radio and suddenly Harry is hearing Lee Jordan and getting flashbacks to Quidditch matches and open air.

“That’s Lee,” Ron says unnecessarily. “That’s Fred. That’s --”

“We know,” Harry and Hermione say and they lean in to listen.

  
  


.

  
  


George’s voice makes Harry remember a moment in fifth year, not long after they’d first got together. George had loudly asked for extra help during a DA meeting so they had stayed behind, immediately falling into the cushions when the door closed. George had been hovering above Harry as he kissed him, his hands moving across his body, unfastening clothes, checking and checking this was okay, and Harry had felt so safe in that moment, so happy, in the midst of everything else. It’s a tiny moment compared to everything else but hearing George now, as he and Fred do their best to keep everyone’s spirits up, brings that feeling back, and how he would do anything to be in that room right now, a thousand miles from this tent and this war.

  
  


.

  
  
  


Following a brief visit to Malfoy Manor where Hermione is braver than any of them and Dobby gives his life for theirs, they break into Gringotts, leave on a dragon, and end up in Hogsmeade, the country whispering about the first sighting of their chosen one in months. Here he comes on a flying dragon and a pocketful of gold as they fight Death Eaters at every turn. 

.

  
  


It’s almost poetic, that they’re ending up in Hogwarts after all, unable to stay away.

.

The first time he sees George in months is during the hour amnesty Voldemort grants them to tend to their wounded and to mourn their dead. 

“I can count at least three new scars on you from here,” is the first thing George says.

“I’ve been busy. George, I was at the explosion -- is Fred?”

George shakes his head. “He’s going to be okay,” he pauses, swallows, looks like he can’t believe it. “He’s even got both ears. Remus and Tonks are gone,” and his tone contradicts the bluntness.

Harry’s chest hurts. He thinks of Teddy, of his own father, and he feels a renewed sense of urgency. “Look, I should --”

“You’re going to say you should’ve handed yourself over before and I’m going to say you’re wrong,” George says. He rubs a hand over his face as Harry scans him. He looks older, tireder -- everyone does. “Ron and Hermione are over there, by the way,” and he gestures to the Weasleys, congregated around a sitting-up Fred.

But Harry has the weight of Snape’s memories in his pocket. “I’ve got something to do.”

George laughs, short, sharp. “Of course you do. I’m going to go help recover the bodies -- I’ll see you on the other side, okay?”

He touches Harry’s shoulder, everything unsaid in that movement, and then he turns and walks away, which is easier.

  
  


.

  
  


A flash of green light; a cool, quiet, King’s Cross. This is where Dumbledore fills in the gaps of things Harry already had the answers to. He sits and he listens and he makes the decision to go back because it’s still not finished but they’re almost there, they’re so close.

  
  


.

  
  


Camaraderie comes in the unexpected form of Narcissa Malfoy, a scared mother who only has eyes for her son. She confirms Harry’s death and with that, he is carried by Hagrid into the light outwith the Forest, to where the battle is paused, their hero gone. 

The hardest part is Ron’s scream, is McGonagall’s anguish, is Neville with a burning hat and a sword for a snake.

But the snake is beheaded and Harry pulls off his cloak, his resurrection making Voldemort scream with rage. 

The final duel is almost anticlimactic as Voldemort is hit with his own curse and Harry catches the Elder Wand in his outstretched. 

There is a stunned silence after the body falls to the ground and then the cheers are deafening. 

  
  


.

  
  


Ron and Hermione come with him to Dumbledore’s (McGonagall’s) office, where he rejects the Elder Wand in favour of his own phoenix feather wand. He meets Dumbledore’s eyes when he says he’s done with trouble, that he’s going for a lie down and a plateful of sandwiches, and he gets a teary smile in return. 

  
  


.

  
  


“What will they call you now?” Hermione asks as they step off the spiral staircase.

“Just Harry?”

Hermione rolls her eyes. “They’re not going to settle for that.” 

“I think they should promise to never talk about us again,” Ron declares, dropping his arms around Harry and Hermione’s shoulders. “Harry, how quick do you think Kreacher can get those sandwiches made?”

“And here I thought your views of house elves had changed,” Hermione smirks, stretching into a yawn halfway through.

“I just think he’ll be missing us,” Ron replies, also yawning, the night’s near-misses across his face. “That’s all.”

  
  


.

.

  
  


It’s the Great Hall, so it’s not private, but they’re tucked off to the side - as discreet as you can be when you’re the one who just ended the war. Harry wraps his arms around George, leans into that familiar space, that safe space, and closes his eyes. 

Harry is so tired -- dying does that you. He thinks of his bed up in the seventh-year dormitory, unused all year, and groans. He’ll go up there in a minute, once people have stopped coming over. They shake his hand, their grateful grateful  _ thank you _ s falling from their lips, as if no one else has done anything, as if Harry’s one spell is the only thing worth honouring from the war.

He kisses George then, because he can. He knows he must be disgusting, he needs a shower, he doesn’t know the last time he brushed his teeth, but George, he kisses him back, and it almost starts to sink in that this is it, it’s over. 

“What headline do you think Rita will go with? The war is over and Voldemort is dead or Harry Potter is gay?” 

“If it’s not the latter then what’s all this been about?”

  
  


.

  
  


The first day after the war sees Harry surrounded by the Weasleys. There are people to mourn, so so many, but these first hours are spent basking in the fact that they survived, that they made it out alive. 

“I did lose an ear, you know,” George says when this fact is sobbed by Mrs Weasley, who Harry sees count her children over and over again to check they’re all accounted for. He waves off the groans he gets in return, his hand finding Harry’s under the table and squeezing. “My looks have been tarnished forever.” 

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Fred says, his arm in a sling. “Harry loves you anyway.” 

“How’d you manage that, George?” Ginny grins, winking at Harry when Mrs Weasley puts it all together and throws her arms around Harry, nudging an indignant George out the way. “One of your Love Potions?”

“My charming wit, actually, Gin, and my dashing good looks.”

Fred snorts. “Funny, that sounds like me. Maybe Harry --”

“Oh, Harry! I’m so happy. Not that you haven’t always been part of the family but -- oh, and what a time.”

And this all feels so out of place, as they sit in the Great Hall, in this fragile peace, but Harry gives into this blessing and rubs her shoulder, glaring at the smirking Weasleys. George shrugs, and when things have settled down he grabs Harry’s hand again.

  
  


.

  
  


The first day of peace passes without incident. Everyone is tired, everyone is in shock, and everyone both wants to go home and doesn’t want to leave Hogwarts. 

As Harry is helping ready the dead for transport, he is hit with another wave of relief that this part is over. There is so much more to go but for now, Voldemort is dead, more people are alive than dead, and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. 

He stands up and imagines a future that seems almost possible now. Of Auror training or Hogwarts or Quidditch, with George in the shop, answering everyone’s desperate calls for easy laughter, and of a life where they might be happy. Or, where they  _ will _ be happy, no might about it. Everything has been so uncertain before, he hasn’t allowed himself to think past the next day, the next piece of soul to be destroyed, but he’s alive, and he has a dozen people who love him, and he’s going to find a future that he wants.

“What are you smiling about?” And here he is, still here after all those months apart, where half of Harry’s brain was always thinking about the safety of the rest of his family, of George. 

“When I died, I thought of you,” which isn’t what Harry meant to say.

George blinks and Harry realises he hasn’t told him that part yet. He watches as George lets it wash over him, pulls himself back to the present. “There is nothing I can say that would mean even half as much as that, wanker.” 

Harry laughs. “I don’t need anything else. I just wanted you to know.” George opens his mouth. “Please -- don’t say you would die for me. I’ve had enough that,” and maybe he’s being too flippant but this is the only way to process it all, for now. 

“I was going to keep it simple and say that I’ve missed you, I’m proud of you, and I love you,” which is very sweet and Harry wonders if he can blame tiredness on the tightness in his throat. 

“When we leave here can I stay with you and Fred? Just for a few days?”

“‘Course.” 

Harry watches the first steps of his new future settle into place and breathes out. “I love you -- come to bed with me.”

And they trudge up the stairs, past the occupied beds in the dorm, and fall into Harry’s. They don’t get undressed, they don’t pull back the covers, but they lie, and they sleep, and they dream. 

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn’t do it!!! fred lives!!! this verse is so stupidly happy


End file.
